


The Price of Immortality

by TheSweetestTart



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Pain, light gore, someone please help this boy, this disgusting man who i love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 06:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6970120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSweetestTart/pseuds/TheSweetestTart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not many could claim to have experienced the feeling of dissolving, of every essence of your being splitting and drifting into the air. To claim the experience of death like he could, to then live to tell the tale. It was an experience he was familiar with now. Motions to go through, well known to him, but never any less painful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price of Immortality

Gabriel Reyes and death were intimately acquainted. 

They always had been. No one would ever speak of Reyes that he was particularly kind or funny, that he was talented in any sort of way, no,  people spoke of Reyes that he was a soldier, a murderer of men, and a damn good one. Even before the incident at the Swiss base,  death had followed in his wake. But things were different now. _He_  was different now. Whatever Angela had done to save his life, she certainly hadn't done it well. Something had gone wrong. And now he was left to deal with it-- Angela was far too busy skipping around playing angel like she'd never done harm by anyone to help him.

Not that she'd want to now, he figured.

Not many could claim to have experienced the feeling of dissolving, of every essence of your being splitting and drifting into the air. To claim the experience of death like he could, to then live to tell the tale. It was an experience he was familiar with now. Motions to go through, well known to him, but never any less painful.

This time was a simple slip up. He'd been off his game, taken a few too many hits, and finally been cornered. The last few things he was aware of was the cold metal of a gun pressed beneath his chin, the cock of its' hammer,  and then nothing. To the two-bit Los Muertos thug who had pulled the trigger, the infamous Reaper's life was ended, his grey matter a smear upon the wall behind him. But things were never so simple, not for Reyes. After the fatal blow, the rush of pain, there was a...lapse, the closest thing to real death he could manage anymore. He lost himself, not even amidst their air, but amidst its' particles, the basest stuff of the atmosphere, of the universe itself. It was akin to comfort if not exactly there, the simplicity of temporary nonexistence. It would be an easy place to stay, were he the giving up sort.

But he wasn't, anyone could attest to that. Reforming himself was like trying to contain the galaxy within the thin membrane of his skin, the tiny bits lost amidst a sea of smoke, the liquid lifeblood long dried upon the cobblestone, the shattered pieces of his skull-- all dematerializing into a haze. Broken, to be reset. It was like friction, every atom resisting Reyes' domineering hand guiding it back into its' rightful place. He would quash the resistance, as always.  Awareness flooded back into him like a tidal wave, crashing against the barely-there edges of his consciousness and nearly breaking it for overwhelming sensation. The ground was cold, far too cold, and the air was hot-- burning through the raw wound that was his body. Sight was the next sensation to come rushing back, glaringly white until his pupils reformed to bring him the twilight's gentler colors. 

He felt shattered and jagged-- his skull working in poor form with the solidifying chunks of his vertebrae, off kilter from his blossoming ribcage. His bones gave a sickening crunch as he forcibly aligned them, the aftershocks of the motion ricocheting into his collarbone and shoulders.  He was dry-- impossibly dry, the tendrils of muscle that formed up around his chest and face scraping together painfully, his skin crawling up around it. He loses balance as his chest gains the weight of shuddering organs, his lungs manage to be the first to scrape into existence. They shrivel desperately, screaming for air, and Reyes has no choice but to indulge them. The first breath is always the most agonizing, the air ripping its' way down his throat and scorching the inside of his lungs. Reyes lurched, the taste of copper flooding his mouth. 

His heartbeat thrums in his ears-- another sensation regained, he notes dully through the fog of his pain. He coughs and sputters, struggling to balance his need for breath with the pain of each new expansion of his lungs. His insides churn and roil as his legs struggle to form before oncoming rush of blood can escape his coil. Reyes' every joint creaks as though they haven't moved in centuries for the effort of shifting an arm to raise himself up on his elbow. He lets his head hang, eyes drifting about aimlessly until they settle upon his limp hand. Something to work at. He clenches his jaw, jolting his hand into motion.

His trigger finger is the first to move. The sight makes his lip twitch into the barest hint of a smirk. Slowly, methodically, he twitches each of his fingers, breaking them out of their aching stiffness. He inhales, deeply, expanding his chest out as far as he can, then letting the breath go. Raspy as it was, it was progress. He shifts his knees up under himself, pushing himself further upwards, throwing a hand out in search for anything to use as a support as he made the slow crawl to his feet. His seeking fingers find a stray railing, and he hoists himself the rest of the way to his feet.

A laugh gurgles its' way out of his tight throat, despite the way his legs threaten to give beneath him, the way his hips scream in protest to supporting his weight. He laughs, because the worst of it is behind him. 

He laughs, because where can his enemies run when even death can't hold him?

**Author's Note:**

> for being kind of averse to gore and guro i'm pretty good at writing it. i guess i wanted to capture a more vulnerable moment for him!


End file.
